Tundra – Page 2 – the life of a nature photographer

Paddling Through Ice

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

Candled ice on the corner of Esker Lake.

Not all the ice on the Hood River was solid. As we got to Esker Lake, the last major lake on the river, we started getting a lot of candled ice. Candled ice is an experience. As the ice melts, it forms long vertical splinters (often 8-25cm long and less than an a few cm thick) that eventually break apart. When you are sitting still, it sounds like the most beautiful windchimes you can imagine spread out over the surface of a lake. There is a delicate glasslike tinkling like a million tiny toasts to you being there. But when you try to canoe through it, it creates a harsh racket and tries to block everything you do. Much of the time we had to chop it up with our paddles so our canoes could actually move. Normal canoes (we had two royalex prospectors and a canyon) slide through with a bit of effort, but pakboats stick to every little piece. We eventually learned to paddle in pairs of boats with a hard-sided canoe breaking the trail and a pakboat following right behind through the broken ice before it could close back in. Even so it is much slower than walking and you’re fighting for every paddle stroke. Luckily we only had a few hours of paddling through candled ice on this trip.

Taking a break after some hard paddling.

Surveying the expanse of candled ice we have to paddle through.

From the shore of Esker Lake.

Canoeing on Ice

Camping, Canoeing, Photo of the Day, Tundra, Water

Friday, January 11th, 2019

Ice on Cave Lake beside our first campsite.

To canoe in the arctic you either have to wait until late in the summer or encounter ice at some point. There was still plenty of ice on the lakes when we started on the Hood River in late June.

On Cave Lake, we started by trying to skirt the shore where the ice was mostly melted. We quickly ran into solid ice right up to the shore. The ice was still thick enough to support us in most spots. With the normal canoes, you could take a run at the ice and if you had enough speed, the front of the canoe would pop out of the water and you’d launch yourself onto the ice. Then the bow paddler could quickly jump out and pull the canoe all the way up.

With pakboats it was a little more tricky. You would have to sidle up to the ice and try to step out onto a relatively slippery surface without pushing your boat away from the ice. And since the bottoms of the pakboats are a sticky rubber material, we had “crazy carpets” that we would tie to the bottom of the boats so they would slide easily on the ice, similar to the regular canoes.

Then we would pull the loaded canoes across the ice, sometimes for quite a few kilometers at a time. Occasionally there would be breaks in the ice where we would have to get in the canoes, paddle for a meter or two, and get back out and pull further.

The trick for not falling through the ice is to stick to the whiter areas. The darker spots are where the ice is starting to melt and get soft. Usually it was still pretty thick there, but the lighter colored ice was definitely more solid.

No one fell through the entire trip!

Pulling canoes over Esker Lake a few days later.

Ice piled up on the shore of Cave Lake. You can see a little band of water we had to canoe over in the distance.

The trickiest parts were where water and ice mixed.

Arctic Spring Flowers

Camping, Flowers, Macro, Plants, Tundra

Monday, December 17th, 2018

In late June the flowers in the Arctic were just starting to bloom, there was still ice on all the lakes and snow in many valleys. Lapland Rosebay (Rhododendron lapponicum) was one of the first flowers, with bright pink blossoms. By the end of our trip in July, the Rosebay was done and a host of other flowers had taken its place.

In this picture you can also see Arctic Bell Heather (Cassiope tetragona) in the background.

Sunlight

Camping, Canoeing, Landscape, Photo of the Day, Travel, Tundra

Saturday, December 15th, 2018

Camped for the evening on the south shore of Cave Lake on the Hood River, Nunavut. If you look closely you can see tents on the bottom right.

Sitting at home writing this in the evening, I’m wondering about this place now. I wonder if there would be a glow of lights on the horizon from a distant mine or if it would be the complete darkness I imagine. Although complete darkness isn’t accurate – there would be stars and reflected light from the moon – all reflected off a sea of endless snow.

When I was there in late June it was light all the time. The night was one long sunset/sunrise. People ask me if I had trouble sleeping – not at all. It was a tiring trip and I usually fell asleep quickly, but I really wished I had energy to explore the area at night. Sometimes we would go on hikes until around midnight and the sun was still up. But mornings came early, and with them the constant work of camp life and paddling.